Dwti Draig

We woke up after a peaceful nights sleep alongside the canal. The weather wasn’t brilliant so we decided to stay another night where we were. After a leisurely morning we decided to catch the train into the hereby city of Mons, which was only 8 minutes away. Yet again the train was empty and clean. 

We arrived into Mons to the brilliantly futuristic train station. It looked like a white spaceship that has settled in the city.

It was raining as we left the station, so we spotted the spires of the nearby Collegiate Church and headed up the cobbled roads to see it and take shelter from the rain. The church is the church of Sainte Waltrude, and holds her relics which are paraded every year on Trinity Sunday on the Golden Coach which is on display in the church.The procession also includes a fight between St George and the dragon! Sainte Waltrude was cononized in 688 and proclaimed the patron saint of Mons. She comes from a holy family, with her parents, sister, husband and four children also canonised. The church itself is an imposing gothic structure with 29 chapels. Construction began in the 15th century. 

From the church we headed into the main square and the Town Hall. As it was Saturday there were weddings taking place, which involved many cars driving into the square in front of the hall all beeping their horns in the European tradition. We made sure to stop and find the little bronze monkey and rub it’s head with our left hand for good luck for the next year!

We went for a coffee and then went to discover the famous street art of Mons. There is a 10km trail around the city taking them all in, so I decided to take Lyn on a condensed version of it. It didn’t start well when I confidently strode off in a distinctly non north east direction to find the first one that was supposed to be in a north east direction! By the time I’d figured it all out, we eventually headed the right way, only to find the art installation we were looking for had now been taken away, and was nowhere to be found! I finally gave in trying to follow Google maps, much to Lyn’s relief and went into the tourist information centre and picked up a dedicated street art street map. I then did the only sensible options and handed it straight over to Lyn. Annnd relax! He took us where we needed to go to see some of them. 

It was quite a dismal day weather wise, varying from heavy thundery showers to blue sky and heat, so it was a case of coats on, coats off all afternoon. We decided to head back to the train as they were 2 hours apart, and did a sneaky little stop in Leonidas on the way, where I struggled with very poor (aka non existent) French to choose my 10 chocolates. I  found that holding the right number of fingers up to denote numbers helped considerably! 

We were soon on the train and heading back to the truck, with a few sneaky chocolates to give us some much needed energy. 

I’m sure there was lots of Mons that we didn’t get to see, but I don’t feel it is somewhere we would return to. For me it lacks the charm and appeal of Bruges and Ghent, but at least it had good chocolate!